


held under these smothering waves

by jugjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abuse, Gen, Homelessness, Hurt Jughead Jones, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jughead Jones-centric, M/M, POV Jughead Jones, Physical Abuse, major trigger warnings for abuse, this is just a short emotional rollercoaster, this shit hurted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 04:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17656013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugjones/pseuds/jugjones
Summary: Jughead hates being at home. He avoids it as much as absolutely possible.But even more so, he hates coming home.





	held under these smothering waves

**Author's Note:**

> author's warning: please read the tags, this is not a happy fic.
> 
> title is from Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod, a really beautiful and sad song by The Mountain Goats that heavily inspired this fic.
> 
> i kind of despise how the show has glossed over how physically and emotionally abusive FP has been (especially in season one) and i think more needs to be said about the literal abuse jughead has gone through. this doesn't do a particularly eloquent job of that, but it was a great venting session if nothing else, and people in this fanbase seem to enjoy watching jughead get hurt, so it's two birds with one stone.
> 
> there isn't a lot of jarchie in this, but it's implied (mostly at the end). it centers around FP being shitty and taking his anger and guilt out on jughead with archie as golden-boy-savior in the background i guess. i hope to write more about how the cycle of abuse fucked up the jones family.
> 
> by the way, i churned this out in about twenty minutes and didn't want to (couldn't bear to?) look over it much for errors so please tell me if there's anything glaringly wrong!

Jughead hates being at home. He avoids it as much as absolutely possible.

 

But even more so, he hates _coming_ home.

 

 

The sun has barely broken through the sky and it's grey out, cold sinking through his thin jacket, menacing and slow.

He presses his ear to the door of the trailer, and thank god for the shitty hardware that lets him hear his dad snoring through the thin metal, signaling that he can sneak his way in. He cracks the door open barely enough to squeeze through, breathing shallowly to keep from making any noise, and avoids the creaky spots in the floor as he tiptoes down the hall and into his room, shutting the door behind him and breathing out shakily. His dad is still asleep, so he’s safe for now. Finally, his pounding heart begins to slow down, and his sleep deprivation hits him.

 

It turns out, as he’d found out in the past few months, that sleeping in Pop’s or the laundromat -- no one bats an eye if you sleep there as long as you’ve got a load in the washer -- leaves you drained and weak. He was only able to stay at the Andrews’ so often without them noticing something was off, and he couldn’t stand feeling like either Fred or Archie pitied him. He drops his bag, still careful to not make any noise  even in his wiped-out state, and allows himself to collapse on the sunken mattress, his muscles cramping and giving out in turns. He unzips the pocket of his backpack halfway to pull out his headphones, plugs them in, and puts them on. An acoustic guitar strums through him and FP’s rattling snores fade into the background. Jughead passes out before his head hits the pillow.

 

Who knows what did it, but FP does wake up, and something of a sixth sense tells him Jughead is home. He lurches down the hall and whips his son’s door open, hanging onto the doorknob. The boy is asleep with headphones on, no doubt in FP’s mind that he was out all night, and he knows his son doesn’t have enough friends to spend the night with them. FP had spent enough of his own nights and avoiding his home ( _his_ drunk, violent, father) that he could guess a few places Jug might’ve camped out overnight. He’s hit with a stab of guilt, even through the haze of his brain. He squashes it like a roach on the living room carpet and reaches down to rip his son’s headphones off.

 

Jughead jerks awake and scrambles away from the blurry face in front of him. His instincts send him flying into the furthest corner of his bed, back slamming against the wall, and he guards his face with his hands. His dad is yelling something unintelligible and teetering dangerously at the edge of his bed, shitty drunken balance threatening to knock him off his feet. Jughead knows this game and knows to stay quiet. He lets FP yell, knows it’ll only get him hurt if he talks back.

 

“You think you’re smart, huh? Think you can sneak in my house whenever you want? Where were you last night?” FP chuckles like a snake wrapped around its prey.

 

“I was out with Archie, Dad, I just went out --”

“You just run out any chance you get now? How many nights have you been gone lately? You can’t even spend a night with your fuckin’ father?”

 

They both know the answer to that, but Jughead stays quiet, feeling sick to his stomach, just hoping against hope that his dad won’t throw something or hit him or break his stereo -- the stereo Fred had found at the junkyard, showed him and Archie how to fix up, taught them some handyman skills _like a_ _real dad_ \-- because he doesn’t know what he’d do in this stifling, reeking, terrifying house without his music. He tries to tune out his father, hands still over his face, until FP grabs him by the wrist and yanks him up to his feet.

 

FP shoves him, hard, with an alcohol-clumsy but deceptively strong hand, his brain so used to being drunk that his own strength doesn’t surprise him any more. He’s not even shocked enough by it to check to make sure Jug is okay.

 

Jughead lands on his bookshelf, sending books tumbling down around him, and one of their corners hits him on the head (his luck that it’s a hardcover and will definitely leave a mark). He knows he’s crying now, feels the tears seeping onto his hands before he realizes he’d started, and sinks down helplessly to his knees like a hermit crab in its tiny shell. The door slams behind FP as he staggers out of the room.

 

When he’s stopped shaking just enough to pull his shitty, cracked phone out of his pocket, he shoots an emergency text to Archie, internally thanking him for his truck and his loyalty even if they haven’t been talking lately.

 

Jughead _: Help can you come get me I think he’s drunk_

 

Archie writes back only “ _I'm coming_ ” but it’s enough, it’s salvation. Jughead dreads knowing he’ll have to explain all of this situation to him (not like he hasn't seen the bruises peeking out from under Jughead's shirt sleeves and watched him limp down the hallway after FP had woken up in a bad mood and used Jughead as his punching bag), even if Archie’s worry and fear _did_ come from a place of love, but there’s no way he can stay in the trailer any longer without getting seriously hurt. Shoving his headphones back in his bag, he stands and opens the door with a shaky hand. His dad isn’t in the hallway or living room, which means the coast is clear enough for him to bolt out the front door and down to the entrance of Sunnyside to wait, panic-stricken and face still wet with tears, for the familiar rattle of Archie’s truck to whisk him away, however temporarily, from the hell he has to call home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me on tumblr at domesticide.tumblr.com, but i am on a self-imposed social media restriction for the month, so i may not respond right away.
> 
> comments are loved, adored, cherished, used for much-needed writing inspiration, and added to my vault of validation. <3


End file.
